HOFMANNSTHAL, HUGO VON. - Austrian writer, b. in Vienna on 1 February 1874, d. at Rodaun (near Vienna) on 15 July 1929. Together with George and Rilke he effectively combated naturalism, countering its materialistic forms with a refined and delicate poetry, rich in inwardness. Having printed his first verses at barely fifteen (under the pseudonym "Loris") and, at seventeen, the drama Gersten (under the pseudonym "Theophil Morren"), by the age of nineteen he was already famous with the short drama Der Tor und der Tod, preceded the year before by a fragment of another short drama, Der Tod des Tizian (1901).

In these youthful works there shines forth, above all, a prodigious faculty for assimilating and evoking the tonalities, forms and accents of Faust, of Shakespeare, Hauptmann, Stifter, as well as for rendering in words, at one and the same time, both the musical and the pictorial qualities of language. But beyond all this, there was in H. an acute torment for an ever deeper interpretation and possession of reality. Hence the progressive interiorization of his later production. The dramas Der Kaiser und die Hexe (1897) and Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919) mark the two principal stages in this direction, together with Der Turm (1925), which moreover preserves a political intonation with its enthusiastic celebration of the world of the spirit as the only salvation both of individuals and of States. This attitude (which culminated in the 1927 address to the students of Munich: Das Schrifttum als geistiger Raum der Nation) is nothing other than a form of his constant striving toward that "universal human," of which his passion for the theatre remains the most eloquent expression, and of which one may likewise discern a significant indication in the fact that he never overstepped, as George instead did, from his original Catholicism into any sort of paganism. He also left some minor dramas: the librettos for Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier (1911), Ariadne auf Naxos (1912), Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919); a few lyric poems (Gesammelte Gedichte, 1907) and an unfinished novel: Andreas oder die Vereinigten (1911-32).

Bibliography10 works

BIBL.: Works: Gesammelte Werke, 6 vols., Leipzig 1924; Unterhaltung über literarische Gegenstände, Vienna 1929. Studies: R. Borchardt, Rede über H., Berlin 1907; G. Manacorda, Hortus conclusus, Pisa 1912; A. v. Berendsohn, Der Impressionismus H.s, Hamburg 1920; Neue Rundschau (special issue of Nov. 1929); M. Kommerell, H. v. H., Frankfurt 1930; G. Bianquis, Le testament moral de H., in Mélanges H. Lichtenberger, Paris 1934, pp. 347-60; E. Waldmann, H.s Ethos und Bildensammlung, Heidelberg 1934; E. Brecht, Erinnerungen an H. v. H., Innsbruck 1946; E. Rocca, Storia della lett. tedesca dal 1870 al 1933, Florence 1930, pp. 41-48.

Giovanni Guerra

@incollection{ec6_hofmannsthal_hugo_von, author = {Guerra, Giovanni}, title = {Hofmannsthal, hugo von}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VI}, pages = {1455--1456}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/hofmannsthal-hugo-von} }

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Hofmannsthal, Hugo von

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